Change Your Thinking

Change Your Thinking

It will take just 37 seconds to read this and change your thinking..

Two men, both seriously ill, occupied the same hospital room.

One man was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour each afternoon to help drain the fluid from his lungs.

His bed was next to the room’s only window.

The other man had to spend all his time flat on his back.

The men talked for hours on end.

They spoke of their wives and families, their homes, their jobs, their involvement in the military service, where they had been on vacation..

Every afternoon, when the man in the bed by the window could sit up, he would pass the time by describing to his roommate all the things he could see outside the window.

The man in the other bed began to live for those one hour periods where his world would be broadened and enlivened by all the activity and color of the world outside. 

The window overlooked a park with a lovely  lake

Ducks and swans played on the water while children sailed their model boats. Young lovers walked arm in arm amidst flowers of every color and a fine view of the city skyline could be seen in the distance. 

As the man by the window described all this in exquisite details, the man on the other side of the room would close his eyes and imagine this picturesque scene.

One warm afternoon, the man by the window described a parade passing by.

Although the other man could not hear the band – he could see it in his mind’s eye as the gentleman by the window portrayed it with descriptive words.

Days, weeks and months passed.

One morning, the day nurse arrived to bring water for their baths only to find the lifeless body of the man by the window, who had died peacefully in his sleep.

She was saddened and called the hospital attendants to take the body away.

As soon as it seemed appropriate, the other man asked if he could be moved next to the window. The nurse was happy to make the switch, and after making sure he was comfortable, she left him alone. 

0A 

Slowly, painfully, he propped himself up on one elbow to take his first look at the real world outside.
He strained to slowly turn to look out the window besides the bed.

It faced a blank wall..

The man asked the nurse what could have compelled his deceased roommate who had described such wonderful things outside this window. 

The nurse responded that the man was blind and could not even see the wall.

She said, ‘Perhaps he just wanted to encourage you.’ 

Epilogue:

There is tremendous happiness in making others happy, despite our own situations.

Shared grief is half the sorrow, but happiness when shared, is doubled.

If you want to feel rich, just count all the things you have that money can’t buy. 

‘Today is a gift, that is why it is called The Present .’

The origin of this article is unknown

“To dream the impossible dream.”

Don Quixote: “To dream the impossible dream.”

What do all the “establishment” candidates have in common? They all promise to balance the budgets, lower taxes, eliminate tax cheaters, and of course keep America strong. The problem is that those are the basics of the job of president.

Americans want more from their president. They want to vote for someone who can offer a new and improved America. The want an America that destroys the bad guys and raises the opportunities for all Americans. They do want health care for everyone, a free or low cost education for their children, and the elimination of poverty.

Americans want health and happiness for everyone. They want someone who will “make America great again.” All of those wants without any cost.

The outsiders are the group of candidates that offer those results if only you will elect them to the presidency.

Thus “we will build a wall and make Mexico pay for it”, defend the constitution, and provide free universal health care for everyone. Those are the leading visions of the “outsiders.”

Looking at the history of our presidents I see a trail of broken promises. The war on poverty, the war on drugs, the Vietnam War, the Iraq War, Hope and Change all have one common result and that is failure.

I like this quote from Bernie Sanders that at least acknowledges that one man alone cannot bring about change:
“No president, not Bernie Sanders, not anybody else, will be able to bring about the changes that the working families and the middle class of this country, that our children, that the seniors, our seniors deserve.” Sanders continued, “No one president can do it because the powers that be, Wall Street with their endless supply of money, corporate America, the large campaign donors are so powerful that no president can do what has to be done alone. And that is why — and that is why what Iowa has begun tonight is a political revolution.” – See more at: http://www.citywatchla.com/index.php/world-views/10450-why-i-support-bernie-s-revolution-incremental-progress-is-not-good-enough#sthash.Xmw9NSox.dpuf

So I will probably vote for Bernie and dream the impossible dream even though I know nothing will change.

Angry Versus Steady As We Go

Americans are upset with Washington. Some are angry. Some are VERY angry. Donald Trump says he is angry. He says the country is a mess. He is correct!

The “establishment” candidates are all part of the Washington group that has been running this country for decades. What do we have to show for it? Low paying jobs, crumbling infrastructure, high cost college education, high national debt, local governments struggling to avoid bankruptcy, and now even the stock market is in decline. And to top that off many other nations thumb their noses at the United States.

Is it no wonder then that Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Bernie Sanders are drawing big crowds to their campaign events? They are talking about changing the country with some specific ideas. Now you may not agree with all of their ideas but look at the establishment candidates. It’s all about a “steady as we go” philosophy that lines the pockets of the well connected.

The base salary for congressional representatives is $174,000 a year. The typical American family income was $53,657 in 2014. You think those congressional representatives are concerned with your situation? They are concerned with their re-election and that translates to contributions from the wealthy that want to keep everything the same as it is now.

So will the angry turn out in sufficient numbers to overturn the establishment? We can only hope!

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Happy New Year Our Wish for You in 2016

May peace break into your home and may thieves come to steal your debts.

May the pockets of your jeans become a magnet for $100 bills.

May love stick to your face like Vaseline and may laughter assault your lips!

May happiness slap you across the face and may your tears be that of joy.

May the problems you had, forget your home address

In simple words …………

May 2016 be the best year of your life!!

The MatzoBall Is the Season’s Hottest Not-Christmas Party

’Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, all the chosen were dancing—and looking for a spouse …

By , BusinessWeek, December 17, 2015 — 11:14 AM PST

Matzoball Martini

God’s callings are mysterious. Sometimes he asks you to free your people from slavery and walk through a sea. Sometimes he commands you to kill your son. Sometimes he tells you to gather your people in a darkly lit club, pump up the jams, and get them wasted.

“I’m in the business of making Jewish babies,” says Andy Rudnick, founder of the MatzoBall, a series of Christmas Eve parties for Jewish singles. “I’m a key factor in stopping the assimilation effect.” The first MatzoBall was held in 1987 in Boston. This year there will be 18 parties across the country, with a total of about 25,000 people paying $30 to $50 at the door. Rudnick says that once he started throwing parties, he never went home alone on a Christmas Eve. “Never. Never. That would be like owning a restaurant and not eating.” Now 51, he met his wife, Catherine, at a MatzoBall in 1997.

There had long been gatherings for the People Chosen to Have Nothing to Do on Christmas Eve, but they typically involved name tags, bar mitzvah bands, and synagogue community rooms. Rudnick figured that cool clubs would be happy to give him their space on a night they were closed. “I said, ‘Let’s deliver the hottest nightclub in a given city that happens to be all Jews,’ ” he explains. He was ruthless about keeping out “nebs,” or nebbishy guys he feared would kill the vibe, and still keeps older folks away by creating “MatzoBall Plus” events for people older than 35. The parties have been such a success that about 20 percent of the clubgoers aren’t Jewish. In Boston last year, Rudnick set up a private room for New England Patriot and famous Jewish sports legend Julian Edelman. The wide receiver was joined by regular MatzoBall attendee Rob Gronkowski, a gentile teammate. “He just loves the Jewish girls,” Rudnick says.

The party’s success begat imitators, leading to the great MatzoBall wars of the mid-’90s. Promoting became Rudnick’s full-time job, supplanting his earlier career in real estate. He battled other Jewish get-togethers by giving out free tickets while chasing away rival promoters who would hand out fliers to people in line for his events. He called himself the Jew Who Stole Christmas, taking on competing parties such as Washington’s Gefilte Fish Gala, Chicago’s Rockmitzvah, Seattle’s Latkepalooza, Tampa’s Vodka Latke, and the multicity Heebonism, which, at one gathering in Palm Springs, Calif., featured Jewish porn stars and strip dreidel.

Rudnick expanded to a monthly schedule, including a June Schmooze Cruise, which had a Clio-winning print ad: Moses stands in front of the Red Sea holding a staff and says, “This time, we have a boat.” He had a quarterly magazine, the Jewish Professional. (His girlfriend at the time was often the cover model.) Rudnick even started a video dating service—1-900-36-YENTA. He scaled back the business in 1997, when he started making more money selling the now-banned diet drug fen-phen, which led him to open a chain of nine plastic surgery centers. He had to sell his Sleek Medical Spas in 2012 when he found himself overleveraged.

He’s still in the medical business—Rudnick sells a health-care credit card—but he’s back to expanding MatzoBall and working to bring Jews together throughout the year. He’s about to release a dating app to compete with JDate, called MatzoMatch. Instead of using Facebook profiles, the app will connect to LinkedIn accounts and allow users to sort potential dates by college or industry. There will also be a matchmaking service for a fee, just like in the old country.

Rudnick is also starting a series of Jewish after-work networking events around the country, called MatzoMingles, and organizing a group trip to Israel next year. And for the second year, he’s selling a block of 200 rooms at Miami’s Fontainebleau hotel for a package that includes a Christmas Eve party at the nightclub LIV and a pool party the next day. Some of the attendees, he was surprised to learn last year, were the children of couples who met at MatzoBalls. Including, to his even greater surprise, his 16-year-old, 5-foot-8-inch identical twin daughters, who’d somehow sneaked into the club. “I didn’t know until I saw pictures of the MatzoBall,” he says. “They shouldn’t have been there.”

Visiting Yosemite National Park

View of Yosemite Valley at tunnel entrance Highway 41
View of Yosemite Valley at tunnel entrance Highway 41

It’s time I spent more effort on some good times rather than focusing on the bad.

When my children were small we traveled to Yosemite National Park or Sequoia National Park for nine years in succession. The first time when our first child, a baby boy, was about 1½ years old. We may have skipped a year after our baby girl was born.

It was an opportunity to get away from the city. Camping with small children is work. Still we enjoyed the change of environment.

Our favorite camp site were the Housekeeping tents in Yosemite Valley. Housekeeping Camp units consist of three concrete walls, a concrete floor, double canvas roof and a fourth curtained wall. The curtain separates the sleeping area from a covered patio area with a privacy fence that’s furnished with picnic table and bear-proof food storage containers. Each unit also includes a campfire ring with grill grate. There are public restrooms with toilet stalls and sinks. Showers are available for a fee. Electric lighting is limited to a single box near the bed racks and there is limited access to phones. You must provide your own linens and so most people bring sleeping bags. The tents are an upgrade from a conventional tent. A nearby general does have basic food supplies.

The Merced River adjoined the Housekeeping Camp area and in 6 minutes and .2 of a mile you could walk to Curry Village. Besides stores and a restaurant that is the heart of daytime activities and nighttime campfire events provided by park rangers.

There are tram tours of Yosemite Valley, bikes for rent, horseback riding, and hiking trails that even your grandmother can handle.

There is always the possibility you will see a bear or some deer. You will never forget the scenery. As you enter the park from Los Angeles through Fresno there is a grove of Redwood trees. A tram ride through that grove is worth your time. The ride to Glacier Point overlooking Yosemite Valley is equally exciting  with a view that is spectacular of the valley below and Half Dome.

Housekeeping Cabin
Housekeeping Cabin
Housekeeping Cabin in the evening
Housekeeping Cabin in the evening

 

Upper Yosemite Falls

Upper Yosemite Falls

Lower Yosemite Falls in a dry year
Lower Yosemite Falls in a dry year
Half Dome from Glacier Point
Half Dome from Glacier Point
Open top Tram
Open top Tram

 

What Makes America Great?

 

  Statue of Liberty

  First read this.

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses, yearning to breath free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

That is the inscription on the Statue of Liberty written by Emma Lazarus.

It’s been there since 1903. The statue itself was erected in 1886. It was a prefect poem (sonnet) to place on Lady Liberty.

We all take it seriously in America until we are confronted with people trying to obtain entry into this country. Some GOP candidates for president need to read that poem and remember their roots. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are the outstanding leaders of the group that do not want to devise a path to citizenship for the people who prepare their meals, wash their dishes, make their beds, and cut their lawns.

By late Monday, states refusing Syrian refugees included Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin.

Have we lost our collective mind? America was built on refugees. They are the people who made this country great. Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JP Morgan Chase is the grandson of a Greek immigrant. Similarly millions of Americans are the children or grandchildren of immigrants.

So your next door neighbors and the people you see on the streets don’t look like you and maybe they have different religious beliefs but they all – we all – have one thing in common – our families all agree the United States is a country where everyone can work and live at our full potential. Somehow we seem to have forgotten that idea.

It’s time we all started acting like Americans.

“Right to Die” is Now Legal in California

Since 1997, four states in the US have recognized the right to die with dignity. Oregon, Washington, Vermont, and California in 1997, 2009, 2013, and 2015, respectively, have laws that provide a protocol for the practice of physician assisted suicide.

Switzerland, The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Province of Québec, Canada have legalized voluntary euthanasia. On February 6, 2015 the supreme court of Canada officially declared that denying the right to assisted suicide is unconstitutional.

Jack Kevorkian is best known for publicly championing a terminal patient’s right to die via physician-assisted suicide; he claimed to have assisted at least 130 patients to that end. He was often portrayed in the media as “Dr. Death“; however, many consider him a hero as he helped set the platform for reform. He famously said, “Dying is not a crime.”

Should the state pass laws that decide if it’s legal to commit suicide? I believe it should be your choice no matter what the reason.

The California law seems reasonable to me.  Here is how its is explained in a Los Angeles Times article.

Modeled after a landmark law in Oregon, California’s law would allow terminally ill Californians to end their lives with drugs prescribed by physicians.

The legislation includes safeguards against abuse, supporters say. It would require two physicians to confirm a patient’s prognosis of six months or less to live, as well as the patient’s mental competence to make healthcare decisions.

The patient would have to make two oral requests to a physician for help in dying, at least 15 days apart, with witnesses to the requests. The medication would have to be self-administered. In addition, the bill would create felony penalties for coercing a patient into making a request or for forging a request.

Owning a Home in North America

Vancouver Skyline from the bay in Stanley Park
Vancouver Skyline from the bay in Stanley Park

Just this past July 22 we returned from a trip that included five days in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. While there we rode one of the Hop On Hop Off city tours. The guide was obviously quite knowledgeable about the city. It is a city of many very attractive 20 to 30 story high buildings. She informed us that the cost of the apartments in those buildings started at $1 million (Canadian). Although the Canadian dollar is currently about 30 cents lower in value than the American dollar it has been almost identical during the past few years. So the cost of living in Vancouver is high.

Meanwhile here in California the cost of homes has been equally as high.  The median home price value in San Francisco is over $1 million reports Zillow. They say it’s a 12.7% increase during the past year and predicts even higher prices in the coming five years.

Down here in Los Angeles Home sales reached a nine-year high in July, prices climbed 5.5% from a year earlier, according a report out Tuesday from CoreLogic a company that tracks home prices throughout southern California. The Los Angeles Times reports that Zillow says “Los Angeles and Orange County are the least affordable housing market in the country.”

Interestingly Portland, Oregon is the city that has experienced the least impact of the inflated home prices with median home prices of about $327,000. However not to be out done their prices have also risen over 10% in the past year.

However as the price of homes has risen the average family income has not risen by comparable amounts. In Portland, Oregon median family income was $55,571 in 2013. In Los Angeles that number was $48,466. Using the old standard of qualifying to buy a home 2½ to 3 to times your family annual income that calculates to a home costing $150,000. No wonder so many young adults are still living with their parents.

What is causing inflated home prices? Googling that question shows lots of analysis but no answers. Here is my take.

Most cities have run out of space for new building. That translates into more high rise housing. Those kinds of structures are expensive to build. Those buildings are townhouse/condominiums translate into expensive homes. Even Los Angeles, a city known for single family homes, has turned to more apartment housing because travel times have become too long (a 1½ hour drive to the airport or to work has become the norm). Average families simply cannot afford that style of housing so they move to the outer edge of the city. That’s where I live.

Thousands of people from other nations have been buying homes in the United States and Canada because it is a safe place to invest their money. That demand has driven up the price of American and Canadian homes. There have been a series of news items and opinion pieces in the Los Angeles Times that have pointed to this growing trend. 47% of Vancouver is now populated by Asians. The San Gabriel Valley area of metropolitan Los Angeles has experienced a growing Asian population to the point that many long time residents have voiced their concern about the changing demographics. Those voices made their way into the newspaper.

http://www.bankrate.com says, “International homebuyers have been pouring billions of dollars into the U.S. housing market as they take advantage of lower home prices and a weaker dollar.” “When buying a home in the United States, foreign buyers often pay cash because it’s a much easier, quicker process, says real estate agent Baro Shalizi of Shalizi Real Estate, in Santa Fe, N.M.” When an elderly acquaintance of mine sold his home for more than $700,000 the buyer paid for it in cash. That all cash offer made the sale easy and eliminated all other offers.

Now cities are confronted with the question of providing decent housing for young families that have median incomes. Without the needed homes there is an impact on the buying habits of those families. They will live with their families. That translates to reduced purchases of refrigerators, lawn mowers, and everything else that homeowners buy.

There will be one of three consequences or perhaps some combination. 1) Government does nothing and young families double up to buy a home or continuing living with parents. 2) There will be subsidized housing for the median income families. 3) More people living farther from the big cities in order to buy a home and that results in more commuters.